When I was in grad school, I had a bunch of Croatian friends who tried to explain to me the importance of a Croatian underground comedic political satire group called the Angry Children. As I understood it, the group would act out skits that resonated with the public in a way that no regular protests or media reports did. My reaction to this was “what a fucked up country you live in” (strangely, it pleased them to hear me say this). I thought of this when I saw the Tom Stoppard play “Rock n’ Roll”, which contains a subplot about how a group called The Plastic People of the Universe were better than intellectuals at critiquing the Czech communist government. Again, my reaction was “what a fucked up country that must have been.”
But now I’m starting to wonder if things are really so different over here. As much as I like the idea of serious, wonky discourse about CBO estimates and WHO rankings, in the end, I’m most affected by the idiocy of the conservative blather about death panels and euthanasia and eugenics. And, for the most part, it makes me laugh. As a result, I find that the only news sources that make sense to me are Comedy Central and blogs that specialize in sarcasm and snark.
Is it right to conclude that this country is essentially just as fucked up as mid 90s Croatia and early 80s Czechoslavia were? And is it possible that there is real political and societal value in making fun of teabaggers and birthers and Sarah Palin ?
(h/t Brachiator)
Wag
Yes.
And, yes.
Baseballgirl
It’s just like when the Jester was the only one who could get away with making fun of the King.
“A spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down” as Mary Poppins would say.
General Winfield Stuck
It is true that “lies work” for awhile. And in a media centric country they have a certain magnetism for an audience. In this environment, the truth as a counter weight often sounds drab and un-entertaining, even though it is the truth.
This is why snark, or parody, is so important to counter lies. It can contain elements of the truth and also the entertainment value to get people to pay attention. Best thing liberals ever did was go all in early on, in the tubes communication realm/
It allows for unedited and uncensored parody like no other media../ It is still not near it’s potential for political effect, but is having some impact today, if nothing else drawing the attention of more MSM by the day, as well as ever increasing numbers of people reading blogs.
Linkmeister
“Is it right to conclude that this country is essentially just as fucked up as mid 90s Croatia and early 80s Czechoslavia were?”
No-o-o-o! Where’s your sense of American exceptionalism?!?
On the bright side, no Tudman has shown up. On the dim side, no Vaclav Havel has either.
jwb
“if so, is it possible that there is real political and societal value in making fun of teabaggers and birthers and Sarah Palin ?” I agree that satire seems to be the only tool that is at all effective, but I’m afraid it is a fairly blunt tool. I also wish that the media was more often the target than the teabaggers, birthers, and Sarah Palin per se, because really, when it comes down to it, the teabaggers, birthers and Palin would not be a problem if the media treated them as the wingnut fringe they are.
smiley
Yes, as long as it is in the “MSM” and not just the blogs. Good luck with that outside MSNBC.
MoeLarryAndJesus
“(I)s it possible that there is real political and societal value in making fun of teabaggers and birthers and Sarah Palin ?”
How else can the idiots be dealt with? They’re absurd, reasonless lemmings. The only thing that works is showing more and more normal people how ridiculous they are. The birthers and Palinites themselves can’t be reclaimed.
JenJen
Really good post, Doug. Wish I had the answer, but I’m leaning toward, yeah, this country which I love is feeling more Eastern-European in its almost-comical dysfunction by the day.
And that’s without teh S.ocialism and Trabis!
jwb
@Linkmeister: “No-o-o-o! Where’s your sense of American exceptionalism?!?”
ok, how about we’re way more fucked up.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Also, check out the connection between the Plastic People and Vaclav Havel. Fascinating stuff.
Linkmeister
@jwb: Grins. I recognized that could be a possible response, but I thought I’d leave it out there anyway.
And I really don’t think we’re as fucked up as Croatia was, nor do I think we’re in danger of splitting into two countries, as The Czech Republic and Slovakia did.
El Cid
When the discourse is inherently ludicrous, why is it so remarkable that sarcasm and satire would be among the most effective ways of dealing with this?
What is the opposite?
Taking ridiculous pseudo-arguments seriously? Soberly discussing the absurd?
Anne Laurie
One important facet of “American Exceptionalism” was that we were able to criticize our leaders right to their faces, without having to play the fool to do so. Thirty-plus years of the modern Republican Triangle — fReichtards, Talibangelicals & Robber Barons — capped by the Cheney Regency, has eroded this tradition to the point that only jesters can be intemperate and immoderate in the face of our modern royalty!
jwb
@Linkmeister: Agreed. Somebody had to hit that big old hanging curve you served up.
JenJen
I was really struck by this comment over on Josh Marshall’s site:
Come to think of it, now I really do wonder if McCain going fully negative from September on would’ve been enough. Before watching the Pekoe Putschers on display the last few weeks, I would’ve thought it a political loser for certain. Now, I wonder if McCain is kicking himself, or if he’s pleased to have essentially ended his political career somewhat above the fringe.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Alex, I’d like to pick the category “Post-totalitarian societies, for $500”.
JK
Speaking of satire, don’t forget about these sources:
http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/ls
http://www.theonion.com/content/index
http://www.borowitzreport.com
http://www.willdurst.com
I think this country is far more fucked up than Croatia or Czechoslovakia.
“WE ARE NOT a good band for Nebraska,” admits Ivan Bierhanzl, contrabassist of Plastic People of the Universe.
h/t http://www.expressnightout.com/content/2008/10/bohemians_rhapsody_plastic_people_of_the.php
Waingro
“And is it possible that there is real political and societal value in making fun of teabaggers and birthers and Sarah Palin ?”
Absolutely. True laughter is involuntary, so it comes from someplace different than considered logic and argumentation. I’m guessing the Daily Show & Colbert have turned a lot of previously apolitical types into progressives or at least turned them off conservatism.
Also, it’s fun and necessary to vent. I can’t stand people who think they’re too high-minded to engage in some mockery. They don’t realize being ‘Serious’ is different from being ‘Somber’.
ellie
I love this song. I heard it in Pet Supplies Plus today.
JGabriel
DougJ:
Yes, though perhaps not to the same extent as in Czechoslavakia and Croatia. We live under the economic oppression of an oligarchy, they suffered under economic and political oppresion under an authoritarian governmentt.
We can sometimes get our government to address the iniquities forced upon our society by the marketplace. Snark and sarcasm are effective tools for doing so, and make people laugh at a time when there is little to laugh at — and therein is the “real political and societal value”.
.
Demo Woman
It took a long time before the laughter turned into real change in Croatia. I think they were laughing to hide the tears.
The Grand Panjandrum
I thought Cole was going to win WATB of the day for his Brawndo whinge but I may have to re-evaluate. Yes these people are irritating. So what. If healthcare reform goes down in flames then we can have a pity party but right now it looks like some kind of reform is going to pass and the righties know it. Did you expect them to roll over and let it happen? Of course, they are going to pull out all the stops. Will the bill be perfect. Hell no! But something will pass.
Chill the fuck out. Obama’s got this.
Anne Laurie
Four or five, maybe — twin nuclear-armed mini-superpowers, no. I don’t think we’re actually at a point where civic discourse can only be reclaimed at gunpoint, but if we don’t stop acting like sociopaths and behaymas, I could see it happening in another 20 years — assuming our Chinese / Indian / Canadian masters don’t decide to stop us.
Anne Laurie
@The Grand Panjandrum: Thanks, dude. We needed that.
freelancer
@jwb:
Exceptional Fast Food, and Exceptional Dance Moves.
Acorn infiltrators to the teabaggers were among the NH crowd yesterday.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/granitepics/3812645821/
Either that or that’s a conservative whose agenda I can support.
JK
@JenJen:
That’s fucking bullshit. McCain himself said that Obama would “rather lose a war than lose an election”. Big fucking deal, McCain didn’t call Obama a secret muslim, he just called him a traitor instead.
A few weeks ago, someone wrote that McCain’s top advisers suggested that Sarah Palin use the line that Obama was palling around with terrorists. Previously, McCain’s staffers tried to get away with the lie that this line was actually Palin’s idea.
Whoever wrote that post you cite from TPM has a piss poor memory and is full of it.
Wag
“Taking ridiculous pseudo-arguments seriously? Soberly discussing the absurd?”
sounds exactly like what we have right now.
What we need is for Tina Fey to do her stuff again. She singlehandedly stopped Palin once. She’s just the woman to do it again!
DougJ
Obama’s got this.
I actually agree. And Vaclav Havel had it in Czechoslovakia. I wasn’t trying to whine here.
JGabriel
Waingro:
I don’t know about that. Adults are usually pretty set in their ways, politically, by the time they’re 30. Circumstances may force them to reconsider, but a television show is unlikely.
But …
I was about 12 when Lou Grant came on the air, and I give it partial credit for my liberal bent. I suspect The Daily Show & Colbert may have influenced a lot of teenagers and people in their early to mid 20’s in the same way, if only to avoid being idiots like the subjects of those shows.
.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@JenJen:
I don’t think so. It seemed to me at the time (I could be wrong here obviously) that last fall the nation briefly sobered up after a long binge on the stupid sauce. The combination of the recession, the dramatic crash in the credit and stock markets, and the magic words “President Palin” caused even the low information voters to take a deep breath and actually attempt to think a little bit, before the car went off a cliff. Prospect of a hanging, mind, concentration, etc.
Problem is, in ADHD nation these moments don’t last very long. So now we are back to drinking the stupid sauce again, trusting that, after all given that now the adults are running the show if we (collectively) stop paying attention to the details, how bad could it get?
In the US, we really only start paying attention when we sense an existential threat, the rest of the time it’s more like “hey, what’s on TV, and where’s my drink?“. This poster pretty much sums up the attitude of the US voter most of the time.
parksideq
On the flipside, it seems like comedians have to be well-versed on the issues that affect people’s lives in order to point out their absurdities in humorous ways. It’s no coincidence that Jon Stewart is the most trusted guy in “news”: he actually knows his shit, and his fart jokes can’t hide that.
qwerty42
Chris Bodenner at Daily-Dish picked this from Wonkette:
Obama Decrees Primae Noctis
At least in the mind of one “Tea Party Patriot,” relayed to his supporters:
I want to see some Braveheart moments in our townhall meetings. I want to see our men paint their faces blue and shout out freedom, like Mel Gibson playing the character, William Wallace, did.
Wonkette responds:
Please, please do this, guys!
Bubblegum Tate
@parksideq:
Agreed. The humorous part is that people think Stewart must have some sort of crack research staff, especially for highlighting diametrically opposed positions staked out by the same politician. “No, we pretty much just use Google,” he says
Demo Woman
@JK: The only time that McCain backed down was when an older medicare lady said that Obama was Muslim who wanted to kill us or something. Can’t remember the exact words but that’s close. At that point he said your wrong. The country was as heated as it is today and I actually thing that McCain did not want blood on his hands.
freelancer
@qwerty42:
I saw this earlier. Oh how I would love to see Jon Stewart’s reaction if the Teabaggers blue themselves at the next Town hall.
JK
@Demo Woman: @JenJen:
As someone who followed the campaign very closely, I find it incredibly disgusting that anyone who give thanks to John McCain for not going as dirty as possible. McCain was dirty enough.
parksideq
@Demo Woman:
As I recall it happening (read: saw on the SNL Weekend Update sketch), the crazy rally lady said Obama was a muslin. McCain/Amy Poehler corrected by saying Obama is not a muslin, seeing as he isn’t a type of fabric.
parksideq
¿i can haz edit buttun? Fracking double post…
SpotWeld
Are they anything like “The Capitol Steps” ?
parksideq
@SpotWeld: I saw them back in 2002 (I think). They were high-larious.
JenJen
@JK: I just finished reading “Renegade” by Richard Wolffe, and am just digging into the new Dan Balz book which so far is just excellent.
I don’t know what, specifically, that Josh’s commenter was (or was not) referring to, but it’s well-known that McCain and his advisors made deliberate decisions to avoid Rev. Wright as an issue. Maybe their internal polling told them it was a played-out issue, but I was somewhat surprised they’re wasn’t even hardcore third-party Wright commercials until the bitter end, here in Ohio, from where I watched the election.
Most recently we’ve learned that McCain’s team vetted the Birthers’ claims, and chose not to pursue them during the campaign. You know, I just really believe Rove would have hit Obama differently than Schmidt did. It’s interesting to me in a political sense. I am by no means about to give McCain any credit, because he was plenty negative enough, and he sent out the Wasilla Wingnut to do the stuff that made him feel all icky for him.
Demo Woman
@JK: Hey I’m with you on that one. They sent Sarah to link Obama with terrorists. I really believe that the only reason he stopped the lady was because he was warned that blood would be on his hands if he continued. At that time the FBI and Secret Service were working over time. He had no problem letting Sarah continue though. He’s a real man.. yeah right!
Mike in NC
“Country First”? In a pig’s ass. Fuck that old man who used his connections his entire life to get ahead.
gizmo
I’ve come to the conclusion that there are no “conservatives.” There are only entrenched economic interests who are expert at stirring up anger and resentment among lower class white people for the sake of advancing a predatory capitalist agenda. We need to give up on the fantasy that there are sincere ideological conservatives.
JK
@JenJen: @Demo Woman:
The simple fact that McCain chose Palin to be his running mate and thereby made her a celebrity who will now pollute our political discourse for the next 15 or more years is enough for me to wish that McCain rots in hell for eternity.
freelancer
@JK:
Heh. Indeedy.
Demo Woman
@Mike in NC: lol Unfortunately McCain will continue to haunt us on Sunday talk shows, cuz it’s all he has left. He spends his time in DC while his wife is on the west coast. Since he lost his lobbyist friend, what else is there?
geg6
No, Doug. America in 2009 is way crazier with much less reason. But all the more reason for all the satire and snark and pointing and laughing.
mr. whipple
“Is it right to conclude that this country is essentially just as fucked up as mid 90s Croatia and early 80s Czechoslavia were?”
yes.
J. Michael Neal
is probably my favorite Communist era . Half the time, it’s impossible to figure out who the target is.
J. Michael Neal
@J. Michael Neal: Jesus christ, what the hell is the site doing?
MikeJ
But there is the difference. We’re allowed to dissent, so no one notices when when do. It took balls to dissent under other regimes, so people hid it under comedy, and were praised.
BTW, fuck the Texas “rangers”, and send good vibes to the Mariners.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
Apparently Republicans do not like the teabaggers being compared to the “no blood for oil!” Iraq war protesters. Personally, I think there’s an equivalence between people who scream “no blood for oil”, “Bush is hitler!”, etc and teabaggers who talk about Obama executing old people and bringing us to a totalitarian state, but when I mentioned it to a Republican friend he went totally ballistic.
JGabriel
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: Well, of course there’s a difference between people with signs that say “Bush = Hitler!” and signs that say “Obama = Hitler!”
I mean, Obama is a niberal.
Also, Obama’s name has one letter more than Bush’s, which totally fucks up the kerning.
.
steve s
“We’ve got an intern with a VCR” I’ve also heard him say.
the 8/13 show intro was a perfect example of this. Stewart shows Glenn Beck whining that America has the greatest medical system in the world and Obama’s going to throw it away. A few seconds later, Stewart shows numerous clips of Beck, a year and a half ago after some surgery, talking about what a horrible, heartless piece of shit medical system we have.
Indylib
@qwerty42:
Oh, hell, yeah! That would take the cake. We would be approachin’ some peak wingnut if we could just have Townhall Teabaggers dye themselves blue.
I will say a special prayer to the FSM to make this happen tonight.
madmommy
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
Tough shit for them. If it it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, chances are it’s a brain-dead, drooling deather/birther/teabagging loon.
srv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmsOIjzQ1V8
I don’t understand how anyone could ever think we were not fucked up. It’s like trying to explain to youts the reaction Dr. Strangelove had back in the day, and Ronnie Raygun never existed.
jl
@Wag: I second that: yes and yes.
jl
We can riff off the deathers’ self-satire, and hope that they don’t accuse of plagiarism.
Adrienne
@Linkmeister: You say that as if it hasn’t happened before….. Shit, the Czechs and Slovaks were late to the party if you ask me. That was all the rage here about 150 years ago!
jwb
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: yes, but you do realize that it’s incredibly time consuming to follow this stuff, don’t you? And I think that’s one of the strategies behind all the crazy: it means even more time needed to sort this stuff out. Try an experiment sometime and stop following the news attentively for a week. Just glance at the headlines of your paper; listen briefly to radio news spots on your drive to work; watch a story or two flipping through cable channels and then move on to something else. But just basically try to get a sense of how someone who can only follow the news in little chunks is seeing the situation. I tell you, it’s difficult to figure out what’s going on, and yet that’s the way a huge number of people have to follow things because there just aren’t enough hours in the day to work, get the kids to soccer practice etc. and sort everything out.
cliff
1: Yes.
2: Yes.
freelancer
What, no love for Tobias?
freelancer
@J. Michael Neal:
Snort! I can’t hear that song without thinking of Iron Eagle
C Nelson Reilly
Obligatory background music link for discussion of Havel and the Plastic People:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvUU5x1u3gs
The Raven
Whole world is fucked up. USA is part of whole world. Therefore…Croak!
Yup.
Slothrop
@JK:
As I’m rather late to the game, other, (more) regular, contributors, have probably already replied… but…
She didn’t say that Obama was a “Muslim”, she said that he was an “Arab”, at which point McCain, clearly flustered, responded to the effect that Obama was not, in fact, an Arab, but an honest and decent family man…
The whole thing’s disgusting.
gwangung
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Well, I dunno about this, but I gotta agree…you just weren’t thinking if you thought Republicans wouldn’t lie or do everything possible to stop this…
Anne Laurie
@qwerty42: D’you suppose the JeeeNyuses fapping about William Wallace are aware that he, you know, lost?
slag
Whenever I want to get some ironic distance on American politics, I just think of scenes from The Big Lebowski.
From the non-sequitur arguments over Vietnam to “I am the walrus”, every scene in that movie illustrates how f’d up our discourse can be. Whenever I watch snippets of townhalls, I just think of Walter saying “Smokey, this is not ‘Nam. This is bowling. There are rules,” right before he pulls out the gun. Cracks me up every time.
Mark it 8, Dude.
Linkmeister
@Adrienne: Having once been force-fed Virginia state history before parents started demanding honesty in the textbooks, I’m well aware of what happened 150 years ago. I have hopes that even the looniest wingnut might think twice about restarting that sort of bloodshed.
Man, those books were awful. (This was 1962-1964, middle school.) The “peculiar institution” was airbrushed out, the only good early Presidents were the Virginians, it was The War Between the States (in Northern Virginia 10 miles from DC The War of Northern Aggression wouldn’t have passed muster), and Jeff Davis and Bobby Lee were patriots who had a slight slip.
ZIRGAR
DougJ:
When I read this, “As a result, I find that the only news sources that make sense to me are Comedy Central and blogs that specialize in sarcasm and snark”, I thought you might be inclined to enjoy my blog, since it’s nothing but sarcasm, snark and parody–well, for the most part.
http://zirgar.blogspot.com
I’d be interested in reading what you think. Peace!
Mke Metteer
Absolutely there is political and societal value in it. Every decibel of vociferous idiocy should be matched with mockery; there’s plenty of room for doing it with style, grace, and acid wit, and the more the better. Maybe it fosters enthusiastic resistance. It’s interesting that you should pose the question–isn’t it what you’ve been doing all along?
Brick Oven Bill
Re: I’m most affected by the idiocy of the conservative blather about death panels and euthanasia and eugenics. And, for the most part, it makes me laugh.
It’s really not that complicated DougJ. Right now the country spends more money than it makes. This is called a ‘deficit’. The deficit is being funded by:
1. Selling debt.
2. Printing money.
As this continues, (1) eventually people will question our ability to pay back the public debt, and demand higher interest rates, and (2) the dollar will be deflated (people will want more dollars for the same amount of stuff). Both of these lead to the same place, a weaker currency.
Then eventually we lose the ability to create value by selling debt and printing money. This is the point where we have sold the good will that previous generations of Americans have built up, and we are broke. And when the doctors want money in exchange for their services, the government will not be able to pay them for everything.
Then, $400,000 procedures for terminally ill patients will be waived in order to spend $6,000 to set a broken bone of a steel worker, and things like this.
It’s really just math.
Fencedude
Your disengenuousness is a real talent BoB.
Now go take it and shove it up your ass.
kthxbai
El Cid
I cannot remind people enough that Ronald Fucking Reagan went on the TV box in 1986 to get approval for more funding for hired terrorist and warned Americans that we, the USA, faced a grave threat to our security because Nicaragua had a government we didn’t like, and THE SANDINISTAS WERE ONLY 2 DAYS’ DRIVE FROM HARLINGEN, TEXAS.
The Reaganites actually drew up plans, even “White Papers”, leaked to the press, to examine the possibility of invading and occupying Nicaragua.
The entire rest of the world laughed, and kept looking back, and wondering, ‘Is the U.S. even partially sane when its President can declare Nicaragua a threat to the USA’s safety and security?
And then all the sober centrists and the ‘liberals’ eager to distinguish themselves from the stinky hippies actually went along with the basic argument?
And ‘even the liberal Michael Kinsley’ was saying we have to shed whatever amount of blood we need to have our hired killers shed in Guatemala and El Salvador because such bloodshed might teach them a lesson?
Really?
Really? After something like that we’re supposed to laugh at the politics of Croatia?
Really?
And don’t give me any of this bullshit about ‘buh it was the Cold War’. The only way that mattered is that the same insane people thought they could get away with more of their bullshit, in the same way that they could more easily sell their fantasy invasion & occupation of Iraq in the context of post-9/11 fear.
Flat out, utterly insane, utterly criminal, utterly murderous, and we ate it up.
JGabriel
@Brick Oven Bill:
After 8 fucking years of Bush, and a mostly falling currency during that time, NOW is when you decide to worry about a weak dollar?
Go fuck yourself.
.
2th&nayle
@Brick Oven Bill: “This is the point where we have sold the good will that previous generations of Americans have built up, and we are broke.”
Do you mean morally and ethically broke or financially broke, Bob? Because in my book, one is a lot harder to recover from than the other. I hate to be the one that has to break it to you Bob, but that ship has pretty much already sailed. The last 8 years of unprovoked military aggression, Wall Street piracy, and a childish “You’re either with us or your against us!” foreign policy, has pretty much sopped whatever was left in the ‘goodwill’ well, Bob! Whether we can survive this financial crisis is still in question, but it won’t be imaginary “$400,000 procedures for the elderly” that makes us or breaks us, Bob!
If it’s really just math, then cipher this for me, Bob. WTF are you talking about?
Brick Oven Bill
More Math and Misrepresentations:
The 35% tax bracket brings in ~$600 billion in tax revenue. Raising this to 39.6% will only yield another $27 billion, with the unrealistic assumption of no change in behavior, so probably at best another $20 billion. The ‘deficit’, which again means the money we spend minus the money we take in, has grown from $400 billion to ~$1.7 trillion under this genius President, who is a Harvard graduate.
The increased revenues from ‘taxing the rich’ will cover around 1.1 percent of this. This leaves around 98.9% of the ‘deficit’ that is not covered. Around 2/3s of federal spending is on entitlement programs, so this will need to be cut. The answer will have to be cutting funds from those who are unable or unwilling to take care of themselves. This will likely lead to social unrest, or maybe a complete breakdown for a period of time.
Many people fall for this ‘tax the rich’ BS, which is strange. This is why you should keep some rice and beans around the house.
El Cid
“How To Do Power Structure Research”, by G. William Domhoff.
geg6
BOB, the only entitlement that eats up 2/3 od federal spending I’d that which goes to what ol’ Ike so presciently termed the military industrial complex. All else is chump change compared to what we spend on the killing and mutilation of people we don’t like and the multitudes unfortunate enough to live in proximity to those we don’t like. They have nice pie charts that illustrate this. And we know you like pie.
geg6
Damn editing. The “I’d” above is supposed to be an “is.”
A Mom Anon
@Brick Oven Bill:
Two words BoB:
Tax Loopholes
Rich people do not pay “all”their taxes. Neither do corporations. They deduct the hell out of whatever they can.
Close the loopholes and stop shit like offshore tax shelters. THEN maybe the rich can actually whine a little about how much they pay.
El Cid
Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go?
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
The federal government collects taxes in order to finance various public services. As policymakers weigh key decisions about revenues and expenditures, it is instructive to examine the recent usage of federal tax dollars.
In fiscal year 2008, the federal government spent $3 trillion, amounting to 21 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While 2008 expenditures — as a share of GDP — slightly exceeded those of recent years, they roughly equaled the average for the last three decades. Of that $3 trillion, more than $2.5 trillion was financed by federal tax revenues. The budget deficit of $459 billion was financed by borrowing and, hence, will ultimately be paid for by future taxpayers. (The recession that began in December 2007 — and policies adopted in response to it — enlarged the budget deficit for fiscal year 2008 and will also impact the 2009 and 2010 deficits.)
As shown in the graph below, three major areas of spending each made up about one-fifth of the budget:
* Defense and international security: In 2008, some 21 percent of the budget, or $625 billion, went to pay for defense and security-related international activities. The bulk of the spending in this category reflects the underlying costs of the Department of Defense and other security-related activities. The total also includes the cost of supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, for which Congress appropriated approximately $188 billion in 2008 (note that this amount represents funding, not actual spending).
* Social Security: Another 21 percent of the budget, or $617 billion, went to Social Security, which provided retirement benefits averaging $1,041 per month to 35 million retired workers (and dependents of retirees) in September 2008. Social Security also provided survivors’ benefits to 6.4 million surviving children and spouses of deceased workers and disability benefits to 9.1 million disabled workers in September 2008.
* Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP: Three health insurance programs — Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — together accounted for 20 percent of the budget in 2008, or $599 billion. Nearly two-thirds of this amount, or $391 billion, went to Medicare, which provides health coverage to around 45 million people who are over the age of 65 or have disabilities. The remainder of this category funds Medicaid and CHIP, which in a typical month provide health care or long-term care to more than 45 million low-income children, parents, elderly people, and people with disabilities. Both Medicaid and CHIP require matching payments from the states.
Two other categories each accounted for about one-tenth of federal spending:
* Safety net programs: About 11 percent of the federal budget in 2008, or $313 billion, supported programs that provide aid (other than health insurance or Social Security benefits) to individuals and families facing hardship.
These programs include: the refundable portion of the earned-income and child tax credits, which assist low- and moderate-income working families through the tax code; programs that provide cash payments to eligible individuals or households, including Supplemental Security Income for the elderly or disabled poor and unemployment insurance; various forms of in-kind assistance for low-income families and individuals, including food stamps, school meals, low-income housing assistance, child-care assistance, and assistance in meeting home energy bills; and various other programs such as those that aid abused and neglected children.
A Center analysis shows that such programs lifted more than 12 million Americans out of poverty in 2005 and reduced the depth of poverty for another 25 million people.
* Interest on the national debt: The federal government must make regular interest payments on the money it has borrowed to finance past deficits — that is, on the national debt, which reached $5.8 trillion by the end of fiscal 2008. In 2008, these interest payments (net of some interest income) claimed $253 billion, or a little more than 8 percent of the budget.
As the graph shows, the remaining 19 percent of federal spending goes to support a wide variety of other public services. These include providing health care and other benefits to veterans and retirement benefits to retired federal employees, assuring safe food and drugs, protecting the environment, and investing in education, scientific and medical research, and basic infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and airports. A very small slice of this remaining 19 percent — about 1 percent of the total budget — goes for non-security programs that operate internationally, including programs that provide humanitarian aid.
While critics often decry “government spending,” it is important to look behind the rhetoric and determine whether the actual public services that government provides are valuable. To the extent that such services are worth paying for, the only way to do so is ultimately with tax revenue. Consequently, when thinking about the costs that taxes impose, it is essential to balance those costs against the benefits the nation receives from public services.
El Cid
@A Mom Anon: That’s why people often emphasize the notion of an “effective” tax rate, and it’s why U.S. corporations actually pay generally lower taxes than nearly any nation — the simple rates may be higher, but if they sneeze or turn sideways, they’re given tax breaks & subsidies.
bellatrys
In the 1990s the SCLM treated the idea that the POTUS and his wife were serial killers with respect, along with many other similar whacky ideas.
Nope, nothing new here…
Leelee for Obama
Did anyone else wake up this AM with the music from Fiddler on the Roof “Tradition” in their heads while writing new lyrics using “Attrition”? Just askin’. I thought it would be a great sound track to the video John put up yesterday.
Good Morning, All! Carry on!
2th&nayle
@El Cid: Thx Cid! You beat me to the punch, though I suspect that the real percentages involved might be lost on our buddy Bob. People need to realize that our ‘military/industrial complex’ (h/t ‘DDE’ via geg6) consistently gets the biggest bite of the budgetary apple, and I’m not even going to get into the contract over runs and bribery scandals (see Duke Cunningham, John Murtha et al). Geez this just makes me tired.
cosanostradamus
.
This IS a f**ked up country! Buncha boring wonks sitting around BULLSH*TTING like their bullsh*t MEANT anything!
When all we really care about is nekkid famous people.
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ppcli
Look, guys, things are quite screwed up here in many ways. And I realize people are writing light-heartedly and not writing serious political treatises here. But saying that we are as screwed up as mid-90’s Croatia just reveals another flaw the world attributes to Americans: not knowing anything about the world outside our borders. We have a long way to go before we are, say, shooting police chiefs of major cities because they are trying to prevent people from killing ethnic minorities (Google “Josip Reihl-Kir”). We have not yet reached the point where entire soccer stadiums full of Republicans will start chanting “Hang the Democrats from the trees” (Google “Srbe na verbe”).
tripletee (formerly tBone)
@Brick Oven Bill:
Preach it, BoB! If people don’t wake up, we’re going to end up with another “soak the rich” Commie like Eisenhower in charge, and then we’ll really be screwed. I’m terrified of having to live through an economic Bataan death march like the 1950s. Didn’t they end up eating babies and old people back then to survive?
ironranger
I have a hunch that a large % of people in the rest of the world views the US as one gigantic insane asylum.
IndieTarheel
@Slothrop: Here’s the clip.
JGabriel
ppcli:
I guess you missed the Sarah Palin rallies last autumn?
(That said, I do agree with you: we’re nowhere near as fucked up as Yugoslavia was in the 90’s. But you picked a weak example for it.)
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El Cid
@ppcli: The political and state structure itself need not be as chaotic as a falling apart former 2nd world state for the political rhetoric to be just as, if not more, ridiculous. In its own way, of course.
HRA
“Is it right to conclude that this country is essentially just as fucked up as mid 90s Croatia and early 80s Czechoslavia were?”
In what sense, Doug? Sorry could not resist.
What I have gleaned from what I have heard and seen of those in the former Communist countries becomes parallel to this country in the current climate as losing something deemed very pocket worthy. Before communism, my own families in one of those regions was exceptionally well off. The ones who put them there passed on. The heirs learned quickly to appreciate the benefits of being compensated for their leisure. Having to go back to work those orchards, vineyards and fields was a bitter pill. They began to phone and send letters to family over the big pond (here) begging for help when all they had to do was remake their own way. Imagine people with one, two or three degrees in higher education did not know what to do to make a living.
I must add there were some who did what was needed by relocating in other European countries and are doing well.
Still, I know the bitter ones have put their mark of bitterness on their children born here. What is spouted by those crazies I read almost daily from one relative in my emails. Even though we tend to buttonhole them in a category of being unintelligent, he does not fit there. He is highly educated and plain stupid to be following Rush, Hannity and Beck.
JGabriel
HRA:
Yes, I suppose it’s worth noting here that several friends from Russia/USSR told me, during Bush’s reign, that what they were seeing was uncomfortably similar to Russia in the 80’s & 90’s. Especially once the torture started.
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ppcli
“me: We have not yet reached the point where entire soccer stadiums full of Republicans will start chanting “Hang the Democrats from the trees”
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Jgabriel: “I guess you missed the Sarah Palin rallies last autumn?
(That said, I do agree with you: we’re nowhere near as fucked up as Yugoslavia was in the 90’s. But you picked a weak example for it.)”
.
I stand by the example. The Palin rallies were troubling in lots of ways, and even at times a bit frightening. There is, however, no comparison between those rallies and, say, the May 13 1990 match between Red Star and Dynamo Zagreb. Really.
ppcli
Having said that, though, I should add that I agree that many things that were seen and said at the Palin rallies displayed, in embryonic form, some of the pathologies that erupted in full bloom elsewhere. There’s enough of a resemblance that we should pay very close attention.
GregB
Even as Johnny Mac tries to defend candidate Obama from the kooky lady in red, he implies that Arabs are not decent family people.
Is it any wonder that most Arab-Americans went from being reliably Republican to dyed in the wool Democrats in the Bush years?
Whoobajoobah.
-G
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@jwb:
Agreed. It’s a serious problem and not one that I think there are really any good solutions for. It’s tempting to say that keeping up with what is going on is a civic responsibility and the price you pay for living in a democracy (“freedom isn’t free”). On the other hand, it seems to me that the US is just too big and too complicated for that to be very practical, especially when you throw in not just domestic issues but also international ones as well. So keeping track of it all is just too much to expect of an average person.
It is easy for us to forget that the US is not a “normal” country in terms of just sheer physical scale and that we have the 3rd largest population on Earth. We are used to thinking of India and China as countries with monstrously larger populations, but we are next on the list after them.
Add up all that, and then throw in our imperial role policing the world and enforcing the Pax Americana, and it seems like the US today has reached and perhaps exceeded a natural scalability limit on how large and complex a society can be and still remain manageable (at least without some sort of federated and hierarchical sub-structure, which the US state system is well short of providing today because so much policy is made at the Federal level).
I think this may be one reason why really big empires are historically uncommon and tend to fall apart pretty quickly, within a few generations of being assembled. Sucks that it is happening to us now, but I’m not sure there is really any solution. Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret, and all that.
srv
@ppcli:
What Fencedude said. Just because we do it to other people, outside our borders for now, doesn’t make us stronger.
JenJen
@tripletee (formerly tBone): Word. I am truly amazed at how few GOPers understand what the highest marginal tax rates looked like in history as recent as Ike’s administration.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@JenJen:
Well, Ike was after all, a secret commie. Even worse, he denounced the Military-Industrial-
Congressionalcomplex. I think circa 1962 or so a special gold plated memory hole was commissioned, just for him to disappear down.That, and Ike would be a Democrat in today’s world. In some ways Barack is the black Eisenhower, ideologically speaking that is.
Leelee for Obama
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I think that is true, in may ways. Love of Country tends to make you want what’s best for your Naiton and pragmatists like Barack and Ike work to figure out ways to do that.
lawnorder
is it possible that there is real political and societal value in making fun of teabaggers and birthers and Sarah Palin ?
Absolutely!
A lot of “still salvageable” conservatives listen to John Stewart and Colbert but they won’t be caught dead watching Rachel Maddow.
In Brazil, where I’m from, the only outlet for progressive ideas during the dictatorship was the humor shows. Slowly the power of snark made people see how absurd and bad for Brazil the government was. Don’t get fooled by a minute. Dictators my count on force to keep dissent down, but the real force backing the dictator is the “regular folks” that do nothing while bad things are happening. When you get through the apaty, dictatorships fall. Humor is sometimes the only way to do so.
Phenobarbarella
I suspect you may be misunderestimating the up-edness with which America may in fact be fucked, in that regard.
Well, sure:
And:
(both quotes, if you couldn’t already tell, by Mark Twain)
And lastly, my personal favorite:
CalD
Everyone loves the happy warrior. Nobody likes a dour doomsayer.
Brachiator
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
When the United States was being birthed, some argued that democracy (or a republican form of this) could not exist in a large country. This sentiment was largely refuted in The Federalist Papers (see especially No. 10 and No. 14), and the proof has largely been in the pudding since then.
And what’s the alternative? Breaking up the country, or rule by a self-identified knowledgeable elite?
And yet, India, with a population of more than a billion, not only has eagerly embraced democracy, but recently turned back ultra-nationalists in their recent elections, and despite being overwhelmingly Hindu, has elected a Sikh as their president.
And of course, the ethnic and religious diversity of India often makes the situation in the US look blandly simple by comparison. And India has Kashmir and Muslim extremism, along with other factionalist problems in other areas of the country to contend with.
And despite all this, India was on the right side of history in supporting democratic movements in Nepal in the 1950s and 1960s, and in supporting the independence of Bangladesh in the 1970s, while the US government supported Pakistan against Bangladesh.
Interesting theory. Not much foundation for it. Ancient Persia and Rome had huge empires, and the reasons for their collapse are complex and cannot just be isolated to their size. And there is no good historical model for the outcome of large democracies. Even Britain was an empire during the time of its greatest extent.
JenJen – I am truly amazed at how few GOPers understand what the highest marginal tax rates looked like in history as recent as Ike’s administration.
Few people of any political persuasion understand marginal tax rates or the tax system in general.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Brachiator:
Personally I’d say that it is our informal global empire that is the baggage dragging the boat down. It is hard enough to keep track of everything going on in the US without our citizens also needing to know something about potentially every country in the world, and our military apparatus is so big that the consequences of using it in an ignorant fashion are large enough to break the bank.
I wasn’t espousing a uni-causal theory, keep that in mind. You have to admit that really large empires are much rarer than mid-sized ones, and the some of the biggest (the Mongol conquests of the 13th/early 14th Cen, the British Empire in the 19th/early 20th Cen) have either quickly devolved into regional subunits or just didn’t last very long. Some counterexamples (e.g. Achaemenid Persia, the Han and Tang dynasties in China, the early Caliphates in the M.E + North Africa) enjoyed a long history but the period of their maximum geographic extent under a single unified rule was fairly brief.
Rome is really the only example I can think of where the imperial power not only controlled wide territories with large populations spanning highly diverse cultures, but was able to sustain that position over a period of more than a century without suffering fragmentation, federation or something similar.
Brachiator
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Life is tough. Even the tiniest democracy cannot flourish if citizens are willfully ignorant. And of course, everything from the educational system to the InterTubes theoretically permits citizens to get access to knowledge with merely a tap of their fingers on a keyboard.
And even if the US were smaller, the world is still large and complex, and citizens would still have to be informed in order to deal with it.
Unless, of course, you are proposing a return to some kind of luddite neo-isolationism where we grow stuff only here, and produce stuff only here, and pretend that the rest of the world doesn’t exist.
You could reduce the size of the US military by half and we would still have a greater military capacity than any other country in the world. Again, I understand the issues you are raising, but don’t see much of a solution.
The UN, for example, does not have an independent military. A smaller US with a smaller military might reduce the problems that proceed from a Pax Americana, but this just means that other nations would pursue their own interests more aggressively, not that the world would be any more peaceful, or that anything would be better in the US.
Again, I note that your models are all empires. Nobody knows what can happen over the long term with a large democracy, even allowing for the imperialist aspects of the US.
By the way, the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Seleucid Empire are also examples of large empires that broke off from an even larger one (the conquests of Alexander the Great), but ran into their own problems in maintaining themselves.
Again, most of the models here are empires, not a large democracy. Even the UK is not the most useful example, because there you have a physically small base nation that gradually unlinked its imperial possessions either into independent nations or affiliated commonwealth nations.
The US and India are the largest democracies consisting of a single nation with a large, diverse population. And while the US is a global super-power, India is certainly a regional power.
And the trick isn’t so much controlling large territories, but dealing with other regions which may be indifferent or hostile to a democracy, or the idea of a democracy.
The Bush/Cheney regime proceeded on the idea that the US could still be a democracy even as it ruled or deposed its enemies. This was absurd, but not without precedent. Ancient Athens betrayed its democratic values as it degenerated into the authoritarian head of the Delian League, forcing its “allies” into supporting its policies.
The US situation is not unique, but it is rare. But the fate of past empires does not necessarily suggest our destiny.
But then again, I always liked Star Trek, and the idea of a future democratic Federation.
Anne Laurie
This is America! It’ll be football stadiums full of Heartlanders(tm) chanting “Throw the liberals down the well!”
(Sorry. PPCLI is right, we’re not that close yet.)
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: On the other hand, we’re such a Nation of Immigrants, there will always be multiple “trouble spots” where a percentage of our neighbors are invested out of all proportion. When I was in high school in the Bronx at the beginning of the 1970s, the political situation in Vietnam, where quite a few kids from the neighborhood were busy getting killed, got far less attention than the political situation in Northern Ireland.
qwerty42
@Anne Laurie: D’you suppose the JeeeNyuses fapping about William Wallace are aware that he, you know, lost?
I’m not even sure they know it’s a movie and not a documentary.
More seriously, they want a Pickett’s charge. It doesn’t matter if it works or not. This is more nearly performance art